


Something About Love

by thesilverwitch (orphan_account)



Category: Marvel
Genre: M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:38:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thesilverwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce never considered falling in love after Betty, never even considered the remote possibility of there being someone else that would accept him and the Hulk. This was a good thing, because the larger the distance between Bruce and love, the safer were things for everyone around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something About Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this lovely post](http://tonysboner.tumblr.com/post/14728397119/ladynorthstar).

Bruce never considered falling in love after Betty, never even considered the remote possibility of there being someone else that would accept him and the Hulk. This was a good thing, because the larger the distance between Bruce and love, the safer were things for everyone around.

He was too dangerous, too complicated to be with anyone else. Bruce was walking, talking time-bomb waiting to explode at any time of any day. He could destroy whole cities, create true havoc on Earth and make Fury regret the day he invited Bruce to be part of the Avengers initiative with his life.

So yeah, Bruce didn’t want to fall in love no matter what. He wanted to be alone and be left to his own devises, be hidden on a dark corner where nobody could get hurt by him. Problem is, life, or more precisely love, doesn’t really work that way. Love is too complicated in Bruce’s opinion; it can strike you whenever it wants to and leave your life hanging upside down. It can create a feeling of emptiness in your chest, a desperate chill running through your body whenever you’re alone, make you wish and dream of things that can never happen.

Yes, love is a mess, a tricky mess that almost made Bruce wish for a lobotomy, or maybe death, whichever was easier. Because the biggest problem with love really, is not the day it leaves you feeling like a complete fool and modifies your basic structure into a babbling pink goo, no, the biggest problem with love is how most of the time, you don’t even get to choose who you fall in love with.

Take Bruce for example, he fell in love with the person he least expected to, with the person he never even thought he could be friends with in the beginning. Bruce fell in love with the snarky, skilled archer with a constant smirk on his face that acted like he always wanted to be anywhere else, which was so rubbish because if anyone wanted to run away it should be Bruce, not Clint.

Bruce’s the dangerous one, the unreliable fugitive. Clint is the extremely skilled spy for SHIELD, with no heart or emotions. Or at least that’s what Bruce thought before he got to know him and before they become something close to actual friends.

See, the thing about Bruce falling in love with Clint, is that it was completely unexpected, sure they were friends, but love? Bruce was never expecting _love_. At first, during his little adventure time with the Avengers, Bruce was planning on staying in his lab, but Clint just kept coming up and ruining his plans of solitude. He kept popping in and out of the lab, always with a smile on his face and a mug of coffee in his hand, as if it was the most normal thing to do. Whenever Bruce asked ‘why?’ Clint simply shrugged with one shoulder, a lopsided smile on his mouth as he replied he didn’t have anything better to do. Bruce didn’t believe him; he had too much experience with lying to know when someone was doing it. Still, he didn’t say anything, didn’t push Clint away; after all if Clint was keeping a track on him for SHIELD there was no point in hiding, that would only make things worse. And if Clint was just following him, for no good reason at all, well, that was his choice.

Bruce didn’t think anything bad would happen, after all Clint knew how to protect himself and run away in case the Hulk decided to come out to play. Everything should go just like it always did for Bruce, but it didn’t. Because he couldn’t go on pretending he was alone when there was someone else with him, someone that had so many secrets but at the same time hided so little. Clint was like a brand new, weird puzzle for Bruce, he was nothing like Betty yet he had something in him, something that reminded Bruce of the smell of rain in autumn, the colors of the sun and the sand under his feet, the sounds of children playing around him. Something that reminded him of his past.

Before Bruce even realized it, before he had the decency to think of how he was messing things up, before he could remember why he went on the run in the first place, Clint Barton had wormed his way into Bruce’s heart, leaving Bruce’s already not so stable mentality desolated.

After realizing it, Bruce tried to avoid Clint, but it’s a bit hard to ignore someone when you live in the same house as them and they’re your teammate. Also the Hulk likes Clint; poor guy probably hasn’t even realized what’s going on with his other ego yet, so whenever they’re on a mission he stays by Clint’s side which only makes it worse. Basically Clint is everywhere, and maybe Bruce isn’t putting the effort of a lifetime in avoiding him, but that’s not the point because what really matters is that Bruce’s plan fails and he doesn’t know what else to do.

On one cold night, after spending reckless hours in his lab doing research on a project that was going nowhere, Bruce ends up crashing in the bath. The word ‘crashing’ here meaning he sits alone in the water, silently crying, until his body is shaking with cold or maybe it’s just shaking from the mental breakdown.

Bruce is strong, no matter what people say about him, he’s strong. He’s lived years of his life alone, on the run, having to fight the world for the chance of survival. He deals with the Hulk’s rage every single day, he deals with the pain of his whole body being ripped into pieces whenever his ego takes over, he deals with being a social pariah. But he can’t deal with being in love again, with being so vulnerable to someone who probably doesn’t give two shits about him. It’s not fair; it’s so not fucking fair.

 _ “I’m pathetic _ ,” the thought dances in his mind with its own freedom, poisoning his mind, making him feel weaker than he had ever felt. 

He leaves the cold water when the clock strikes three, because he’s tired of moping like that and because he’s not Tony Stark, Bruce needs some occasional sleep to survive. His simple double bed stands like a beacon of comfort and warmness in the middle of the room, but Bruce decides to stop by the kitchen to get a snack before falling asleep and that’s when he hears it.

A soft, trembling noise coming from the room two doors next to his; Clint’s room. It’s a panting breath, escaping through a tiny gap between the door and the wall and Bruce can’t resist peaking in, he knows what he’s going to find and he knows he shouldn’t do it, but he’s not exactly in his best state of mind and the offer is so tempting, so delicious.

Inside the lightless bedroom there’s Clint, half-naked with his body lying completely debauched in a red velvet chair. One of his hands is inside his pants, stroking his cock, while the other hangs in the air. His head is thrown back, his short hair matted on his forehead with sweat as Clint’s mouth forms a perfect ‘O’.

Bruce means to look away, to step back and go into his bedroom probably to cry a little bit more since the mental image of Clint, stroking himself and looking like nothing else but ravishable was never going to get out of his brain now. But then, just as he was about to flee Clint moans out a name. Bruce’s name. He says it so quietly Bruce barely hears it, a soft ‘ _Bruce_ ’ followed by a moan, and if Bruce wasn’t feeling like his world had just been thrown to the dogs before he sure did now.

Bruce takes a step back, decided in going back to his bedroom and just stop to think about what he’d just seen and what he was going to do, _if_ he was even going to do something. But as he tries to leave quietly, Bruce steps on a fragile piece of wood and the whole floor creaks. Clint’s eyes widen dangerously as he notices the other man, wearing only a frayed white shirt and pajama bottoms, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

They stare at each other for what seems to be a life time but what was probably just a couple of seconds, Clint still with his hand down his pants and Bruce hanging carefully to the door’s frame, neither daring to look away. 

And then, just when things seem to be reaching the limit of ‘extreme awkward’ something in Bruce’s brain clearly says ‘oh fuck it’ because really, how worse could things get? Everything in his life was already a mess, so maybe he was about to lose one of his few friendships by using a really bad porn line, it’s not like things could get much worse.

“Do you need a hand with that?” He asks and Clint only stares at him as if he’d just grown another head.

“Yeah?” Replies Clint; it was obvious he was unsure of what the hell was going, but unsure or not Clint was never one to refuse a good opportunity when it appeared.

Bruce gathers up all his courage with a deep breath as he steps inside the badly lit bedroom and closes the door behind him. Clint never stops looking at him, not even for a single second, as Bruce gets down on his knees and pulls the rest of Clint’s pants down. He isn’t really thinking about what he’s doing, he’s simply moving on reflexes and old college memories.

Clint tastes like a mix of salty pineapple and kiwi, which Bruce thinks is a bit odd but doesn’t question; he hasn’t had any kind of sex in a while now and he was never very experienced to begin with, so for all he knows this is what all men are supposed to taste like. Clint’s hands grab the back of his head to guide him softly, and though Bruce is still the one in control part of it is lost in Clint’s strength.

One of Bruce’s hands strokes the base of Clint’s cock since he can’t fit it all in his mouth, while the other goes down on his pants where Bruce starts to jerk himself off just like Clint had been doing only a couple of minutes before. And it’s on that moment when Bruce decides to relinquish all forms of control and just roll with it, letting Clint choose the pace and how far he should go.

“ _Fuck Bruce_ – yeah, just like that.”

Clint comes first, he bits his lower lip to avoid making any loud noises and Bruce can’t help noticing how he attractive he looks like that, which is incredibly not fair because most people look terrible when they come and then comes Clint, making it even more sexual than it was. Bruce lets him go and takes a small step back, he comes in his pants like a horny teenager only a couple of seconds afterwards.

“I’m gonna leave now.” Bruce says quietly, he gets up and walks away as quickly as he can. Clint yells for him to wait and even tries to grab Bruce’s arm, but his pants are still down his ankles and he isn’t quick enough to reach the other man.

Bruce really wants Clint, he wants him so badly it almost hurts; because Clint seems to be the only person who’s close enough to understanding him, the only person who looks at him and doesn’t seem a monster, he’s calm and charming where Bruce is a living and breathing anger management mess. But Bruce wants lots of things, and this is just another one to add to the list. 

They can’t be together; it’s too foolish, too mad. Bruce is a liability and he would be putting Clint in constant danger, maybe nothing would happen today, or tomorrow or the day afterwards, but soon enough he was going to hurt Clint and he wasn’t about to let that happen.

Bruce had let things get far enough already.


End file.
